The overlooked things make a big impact.

First off, sorry posts have become less frequent I am BUSY, This month has brought the Rite of Spring, Till, Rosenkavalier, Liadov, Lanza, Bedrossian, Messiaen, the list keeps going.  BUT, here today is a post.

So this post will be in two parts and comes from two places, Grisey's Accords Perdus and Messiaen's Appel Interstelliare. That is a big bite of horn music, also both quite different from each other. In many ways this post is a continuation of two other posts Faking it, and The Little Things. I am sure this post will say something by itself, but the is a great deal of ideas and thoughts I will be building on from the previously mentioned.

First off, this idea I have that an exceptional performance of any kind of music requires a few things.

1. Knowledge of the style and score.
2. Knowledge of the composer as well as their idiosyncrasies when it comes to notation. (For example we Know Bruckner and Mahler marked their music VERY heavily compared to others. The same is true with composers now a days. Though with modern notation less is left to "conventional knowledge", but there are markings etc. that remain rather consistent in various styles.. see point 1.).
3. Validity of the publication. This has two big points. First, the quality between publishers is vast... some work heavily with composers and we can generally assume that the marking there in are valid markings. Though, others are not as consistent and full of errors (this also applies to music from other era, but the wide range of publishing venues currently complicated matters a bit more). Second some composers more than others are known to constantly revisit their music (Boulez for example) to make changes. So, is the music you are working from the current one, or is it a photocopy of the first draft that became heavily revised. This may seem like a big thing to bite off, but I believe that this kind of responsibility is needed to bring accurate and purposeful interpretations to listeners.
4. Quality collaboration. This is the byproduct of all of the above, we all have different ideas, hopefully built on experience and education, someone may have the missing piece of the puzzle. 

So when we consider all of the above what does it all mean. 

REAL WORLD EXAMPLES!

Example 1 from Grisey's Accords Perdus 

So, quick thing to be said. Accords Perdus is a work for two horn based on the natural harmonic series of many horns. The end result is you have varying degrees of microtonality, when you consider and actually take the time to analyze the microtonality the piece becomes more complex sonically, and in turn more interesting. It is one thing to just get the pitches on the page but Grisey gives us much more to consider. The same way we analyze Beethoven's music to know the harmonies the same thing applies here, that is the analysis of the score. SO to example 1. We see that both horns have marked an E eighth flat, one could possibly assume that this is a moment of unison between the two horn. BUT (there wouldn't be a post if there wasn't a but) if you take time and compare harmonic 7 on the SI horn (the upper horn is currently using SI horn to get the E eight flat. The part is not in SI, just the use of SI horn will give the appropriate pitch) and harmonic 10 of the FA horn you would find out that the natural intonation of those harmonic series would place the pitches not in unison but actually ~17.5 cents apart. This kind of thing happens often in the work so one has to take time to really figure out what is going on, so that it can be conveyed to the listener in an obvious way.

I will be back later with part 2 which will talk about the last two points from my list of 4 in regards to Messiaen.

Cheers.

The little things make all the difference

As I mentioned in an earlier post I have been preparing Gérard Grisey's Accords Perdus to perform with Composer/performer Horn player Max Pankau . For those of you that are not aware of this work it is MONUMENTAL for two horns. It is based on the natural harmonic series and is done so in a way that you end up with a great amount of microtonality, from quarter tones to eighth tones. It is a remarkable work you can read about it here. The Oil Valley Hornist blog does a great write up on it so I will not try. Go ahead and wander over there and have a read.

What I want to talk about is how I go about learning microtonal skills. This also relates back to the Stockhausen as he does call for some microtonal sections. More often than not microtonal things fall under that "faking it" post I made a few weeks back. Which is a shame, because poorly executed microtones sound all kinds of bad. When I first encountered micrtones I took a peers advice and just "played it out of tune". When I look back that was terrible advice that just missed the point. So here are my quick tips to figuring it out

1. You need to learn to hear and be comfortable with microtones. 
1. Practice playing a semitone and find the space equal between the two. Try different fingerings etc ( I will get into that later) For the horn we are lucky since the harmonic series has things like flat seventh harmonics. KNOW THE SERIES, and use it.
2. Don't use a tuner to do it. That is just a dog chasing it's tail, be able to HEAR it. Compare from the semitone above and below, isolated and in context.
2. Figure out the best way to do it for the work you are playing.
1. Two examples:
1. I did a work last year that had some rapid microtonal things, no way I could do it well with using harmonic series based intonation. You can always DETUNE your horn. A brief note about that. Usually things happen too quickly to muck around with slides. So detune the Bflat side of your horn and use it for the micro sections and the F side for regular things. Mark the slide where the quarter tone is (eighth tones are a diff beast) and use a slidelock so you can get back to home base quick. This will also work if a composer gives you microtones below the trebel clef staff (horn in pitch) where microtones don't really exist in the harmonic series.
2. Grisey's Accords Perdus uses harmonic intonation, you are called to play quarter tones, and eighth tones so the only way you will make it work is the harmonic series. That being said, when you are in rehearsal you need to make sure the aural product is correct so be prepared with all the alternates (fingerings, and where they are in the harmonic series).
3. Be aware of the colour. With microtones the colour shifts on the horn through a great deal of spectrums we usually don't get. Keep an ear for it make sure it makes sense sonically.
4. Finally, practise, practise, practise. These things are hard enough on the best day and fall outside the traditional technique in many many ways, so when they are called for don't be surprised (you will surprise people when you can actually do them)

USEFUL LINKS:

I did some google footwork for people.

Oil Valley Hornist - Huge resource for this stuff, great work!

Charles Ives - Not for horn, but you can really hear it.

Doug Hill covers this in his Extended Technique book (something all horn players [and not composers...] should own.)